Dallas Cowboys Blog

Bill Callahan is not much for excuses, so he’s not going to blame injuries for any previous losses, but the Cowboys offensive coordinator said Thursday he feels good having a healthy offense going into a huge showdown against the Washington Redskins.

“I think it’s great that everybody is back,” Callahan said.

When the Cowboys lost a 38-31 game to the Redskins on Thanksgiving, running back DeMarco Murray and center Ryan Cook were hurt. That meant Mackenzy Bernadeau played center, Derrick Dockery moved to guard, and Felix Jones played running back. Dallas had 35 yards rushing on 11 carries.

Now, part of the problem, Callahan said, was that the Cowboys were trailing and had to throw the ball _ which they did well. However, he believes that having a full complement of healthy players can allow Dallas to execute the game plan better earlier in the game.

“We have more stability and more continuity, and a common thread is communication,” Callahan said. “And anytime you have great communication and continuity, it bodes well for your offense to function. You can execute better, and you can play off one another better, and you can anticipate things a whole lot better. Having them back is a plus.”

Asked if the Cowboys will push to run the ball more this week, he said he wasn’t sure.

“You just don’t know,” he said. “All these games are different. Every time you get in one of these games you sit there as a staff and say, ‘OK we’re going to run 30 times.’ We only ran it 11 times last week, so you want to be balanced and you strive to do some things to create balance and create more opportunities, but some of those plans get pushed out of the way when you have to adapt after the first quarter and you may take advantage of certain things.”

Asked how the Redskins might adapt to Murray, Callahan said Washington has a history this season of doing things different every game.

“They present a lot of problems,” he said. “You look at the Baltimore game, and it’s completely different than the Cleveland game. Then you say there should be some carryover from Cleveland to when they played Philadelphia…Nope, it’s all different. Everything is changed. Until you get in the heat of the battle, you just don’t know.”